I guess. It's more faith in Nintendo's tech than Sony's that makes me so confident it will work fine. If there was no Wii U I don't know if I would have pre-ordered given the scant lineup of launch day. At the moment I'm leaning toward AC4 after Watch Dogs was pushed back.

If you run it in 1080i it looks pretty close to a 2:1 integer scale and gets on pretty well in native res games. It isn't too bad to control with a pad, but you have to work out what it wants as it doesn't explain it too well. It works well with Plus as I can play while out, sync saves and carry on with my Vita TV. Some games even give you full PS3 pad button prompts too, so it can clearly detect which model it is working on. PSP games are ridiculously pixelated but sharp in 1080.

My main complaints are that it's not 100% compatible due to the nature of the thing, I ran into the odd game which just plays badly without a touchscreen (targeting is even worse than it was in Senran Kagura), and PS1 games force the system to switch to 720 which doesn't scale brilliantly.

Actually my biggest complaint is that because it's not designed to work in countries without Vita TV sections in the store, I might have to swap memory cards on my Vita to play TxK and OlliOlli anyway.

edit: oh, and it doesn't fix the awful network speeds when you run through Ethernet like it does on PS3.

If it comes in at under £100 - a piece of kit which plays PSV, PSP and PSOne games, plus streams PS4 games and the usual TV services, with the added future promise of playing PS3 games via 'teh cloud' is a pretty compelling prospect!

Dripping the Vita name is a touch odd, but I guess Sony want its audience to be as wide as possible.

I am surprised the bundle pack includes the PlayStation TV, a DualShock (3) pad, an 8GB memory card along with a digital version of The LEGO Movie when packing in Minecraft (the PS Vita version) instead of the LEGO game is surely a much better move.

I think this could go either way to be honest; a surprise hit or a bit of a flop.

I would guess Minecraft is going to be this holiday season's main Vita bundle? Could make it a big hit - kids love Minecraft and parents would rather they were on a handheld than the main TV or the PC, where Gary Glitter can get them by building an in game box, stick and rope.

If Sony are smart they will create a limited edition Vita with a Minecraft design - you have to say, Nintendo never miss an opportunity to sell limited edition consoles and Sony should take up this particular strategy.

Was there a COD Vita a couple of years ago? There should have been a LBP one, a Killzone one, a Tearaway one and a BL2 one. Perhaps a Football Manager Vita with the rear touch designed like an old-style tactics board? The circles around the Dpad and face-buttons could have been footballs, the analogue sticks too, with a Football Manager Classic 14 logo along the top of the screen.

I would say it's likely most buyers will already have a DS3 from their PS3. The bundle with a controller will surely be £99 or £109 though and it comes with a 8gb card. If you have a Vita already, I think you are meant to swap the memory between devices?

So it's more like £111 when you factor in an HDMI cable if you own a Vita and no PS3, £86 if you own a PS3 and no Vita - I don't think I am interested in the device as I already have a Vita and a Smart TV but there's no way you are looking at £205 to get started.

Swapping memory cards is a pain in the arse as you have to fully power down etc. I recall it losing bubble position when I first did it, but that may have changed now. I keep a 64 in my vita and a 32 in my TV. The pad/memory card pack will end up being decent value if they don't mess up the pricing.

Edit: it does come with an HDMI cable too (at least my Japanese one did), they're not totally hopeless!

aros wrote:
I would say it's likely most buyers will already have a DS3 from their PS3. The bundle with a controller will surely be £99 or £109 though and it comes with a 8gb card. If you have a Vita already, I think you are meant to swap the memory between devices?

As a PS4/Vita owner, that's why I feel the difference between the initial 'almost the price of a game '£60 suggestion from the media and the £85 reality is significant enough to make me go from "may buy", to "no way".

£85 is too much, imo, to pay for what would amount to an accessory for PS4/Vita/PS3 owners, and the cost of all the needed extea gumpf (and the 8gb card will not nearly be enough for a household gaming device) is way too expensive an amount to pay for what would, to those people, essentially be a sub-PS3 powered 'console' costing nearly as much as a Wii U.

It works with a DS4 as well so all you'd need is a spare memory card. It comes with the same 1gb internal as the Vita 2000 as well, so you're fine if you want to play stuff on game card. As I said, they might have improved handling of bubbles when going across as they've upgraded the firmware a fair few times since I last tried it.

The no hdmi outrage was a guess as Sony mentioned the US game and controller bundle to have a hdmi cable but mentioned nothing about the vanilla pack having one. Still its just a little too expensive imo, £70-75 is a sweet spot for me, 85 and I want some extras.

monkman76 wrote:
I'm tempted, just to stream PS4 games to a different telly - in which case I wouldn't need more than the 1GB internal storage would I? Plus I already have a spare DS4.

How would the image look on another HDTV if it's being streamed via a Vita though?

The image looks heavily compressed already when using remote play on the Vita's small screen, but it still looks great due to the small image size. Surely it'll look extremely noticeable if that image is then stretched to fit a 40 inch TV.